There was blood on her hands. Her own blood. She was bleeding.
Amanda was confused as to whether the sight of her own blood staining her palm was more or less distressing than if it was the blood of another. It was wet and sticky, and as it began to clot, she could smell the iron it in it. Metallic mixed with Jack Daniels. If she had eaten breakfast this morning, it would have been enough to make her vomit.
Of all the terrible, and (prior to today) unspeakable acts Charles Patton had committed against her on that devastating evening in a low-priced Atlanta motel, Amanda was at a loss as to why the simple sight of a small amount of her own blood was what her brain had chosen to give her as it's favoured flashback. Usually, it was less about what she had seen and more about what she had felt. The flashbacks had waxed and waned over the years, but when they flared back up, usually after a particularly triggering case, or when she was over tired – or, sometimes, for no discernible reason whatsoever – it was always the fear, the panic, the pain...the helplessness that ate her up and spat her back out, leaving her shaking and sweating and retching. The feelings, the emotions; the terror and the anxiety were what overwhelmed her. Not the sight of a little bit of blood.
Amanda had felt a strange sense of distance since she had left Doctor Alexis Hanover's office. The non-stop melody of car horns that filled the busy streets of Manhattan on her walk back to the squad room echoed through her ears as if she were at the opposite end of a tunnel, or the flip side of a parallel universe. Everything around her looked the same, but it was as if the world had tilted on it's axis a little and everything had a slight air of difference. It was as if her feet weren't quite on solid ground as a result, as if she was walking slightly up hill or over sand instead of concrete. As well as the infernal honks of the car horns sounding tinny, the sunlight was too bright, and the sky too blue. She squinted against the onslaught of her own senses. She wrapped her jacket around herself tighter, as the previously cool summer breeze now seemed to possess the icy bite of a winter's day.
What had she been thinking?
Amanda admonished herself. She should never have opened up the Patton can of worms. Even if her harsh response to her past had surprised her, she should have known better. But at the time, put on the spot to dredge up a past trauma to get through her training exercise, for some now seemingly crazy reason, her rape seemed like the safest experience to use. She shied away from letting herself feel how truly fucked up that was. Whilst she had spent the better part of a decade minimising the effects of her assault to herself, today had proven to her she was not nearly as past it as she had thought.
Because to move past something, maybe she needed to engage with it in the first place.
Does it matter if I'm over it?
Amanda cringed as she remembered speaking the words to the therapist, realising now that even before she had opened her mouth, the kind-faced woman providing her training knew full well that she wasn't over whatever she was referring to. Even if Amanda herself did not. But still, the Patton chapter of her story had seemed like a preferable one to tell over everything else. Despite the fact she had nearly died of a catastrophic haemorrhage when birthing Jesse, it had felt like a bit of cop out to use it as an example, seeing as how it had all turned out all right in the end. And everything else- her childhood, her dad, her issues with Kim, the gambling...it was all too interlinked, to complicated and messy for a mere training exercise. Where would she start? Where would she finish?
No, the 'Patton Incident' had a clear beginning, middle and end, a true and complete tale, something else she had learned from freshman English, like her ability to read between the lines. It had been the easiest option out of her 'Profile of Life Trauma' for a work-related, tick-box task.
Christ, she was fucked up.
Back when Patton had come to New York and raped Reese Taymore, and the truth had come out in all it's ugly glory, Amanda had not been entirely honest. She had sung from the same hymn sheet as Reese, putting voice to any similarities in their tales of woe, anything to back up and confirm the other woman's testimony. Then she had shut her mouth and omitted the rest.
